Indie games of PAX: Retro Vision, Goat Punks and Necroman

PAX was filled with more indie games than you could shake a stick at, believe me I tried. As much as we would love to cover them all we sadly only had so much. Fear not though, here are a list of some of my favourites from the weekend. From banging tunes, to goats, to mass skeloton suicide, this rundown of indie games from PAX lists some of the most memorable from the expo.

Retro Vision

Dev Kyle McKellar was far better at the game than us.

Retro Vision pretty much does what it says, it is retro… and you look at it with vision? Nah, maybe just the first part, but it sure is fun! Part of PlayStation First, this game is the sole project of Kyle McKellar who unsurprisngly was influenced by Tron. Retro Vision is one of the games that has a basic concept and then just smacks you around the head with it.

Moving along to some pretty banging music you have to collect coins by hitting the left and right triggers to move around a cylinder. As you progress further down the neon track things get a bit faster and blockades become more frequent. Move too close to a blockade and the walls will turn orange entering you into slow motion, if this happens you have to react pretty quickly to avoid crashing. Something that I was not too good at, but if it were socially acceptable would have spent all day hogging the demo to master. What I played was addictive, fast paced and best of all well polished. Be sure to look out for Retro Vision on the PlayStation store in the future.

Goat Punks

Pictured: goats on a candy mountain… obviously.

Who doesn’t love goats? They are arguably the best animal in existence. Did I say arguably? I meant to say it’s a scientific fact they’re the best. Goat Punks has the player take control take control of a goat who only has one goal: to be top goat. Using directional changes the goats must battle to the top of a mountain and headbutt the current goat overlord, once they get there they aren’t exactly a benevolent goat leader, they rain down fire balls to stop others from usurping their position.

As a multiplayer game with up to four goats battling it out, Goat Punks is a great throwback to the party style games you remember as a kid. Well it’s a throwback if you were like me and spent your time at every social event by the N64 in a corner. What was on display at PAX was a great demo, it’ll be interesting to see if the full game can go to dizzying goat filled heights.

Necroman

Fly Necroman, FLY!

Another from PlayStation First, Necroman is a game where you kill yourself to progress. Imagine a Mario style platformer where your dead body makes the platforms, that’s probably the best and most horrifying way to describe it. You have three lives to throw away before you actually die. Once you’ve got to where you need to be you can then recollect your souls and die some more.

Necroman is probably the first and only suicide simulator that I’ll ever say is good fun. I really liked the approach to platforming, it made that style of gameplay feel fresh in a genre that has been flooded with indie releases. From the demo alone the premise presented some tricky puzzle scenarios that have the potential to make Necroman the next Super Meat Boy.